He is part of the euro team. Granted half their CBs had to get injured before he was called up, but France has a lot of depth in that position, possibly more than anyone else in the world.

Following Lyon for a number of years. I have seen Umtiti a fair bit. I won't say how he will turn out for Barcelona as shit players can become good and good players can become shit if they do move somewhere else.

He is like the 6th choice CB for France atm. Wasn't going to get called up but did because of injuries to Varane and Sakho(drug thing).

He is a good talent. Not elite and i don't think he ever will be elite. He is a bit like Mangala in playing style. Not great with the ball. Physical and a fantastic athlete. Not good technically so was surprise he was linked with Barcelona. But then Barcelona have changed their standard in recent years.

He has a lot of room for growth though. He was very highly rated when he was breaking through but he never progressed as well till last season. But like I said players change due to different atmosphere. 30m is 10m more than what he is worth atm however barca are probably investing in his potential than current ability

Yea, the logic seems to be that Adriano and Bartras back up roles will be replaced by Umiti. As he grows with the team, he will gradually take over Mascheranos starting CB role. Glad the team is trying to get younger tbh and looking for these type of purchases.

The club still needs to do some digging though. Adriano, Douglas (lol), Alves, Bartra and possibly one of Verm/Mathieu are leaving. That's allot of players in defense all leaving in 1 window.

apparently we wont sign umiti until we get rejected from our first three options.

one being marquinhos idk the other two

RealGunner wrote:

He is a good talent. Not elite and i don't think he ever will be elite. He is a bit like Mangala in playing style. Not great with the ball. Physical and a fantastic athlete. Not good technically so was surprise he was linked with Barcelona. But then Barcelona have changed their standard in recent years.

Yeh, that's the impression I'd of him on watching some of his highlight reels.

The numbers suggest he's good in the air. But I still can't get myself excited about a CB of small stature joining our ranks. Love me some tall, athletic and technically proficient CBs.

À bout de souffle wrote:Love me some tall, athletic and technically proficient CBs.

Guess you'll have to start supporting Bayern after all

Also Andres Gomez is being linked with us from Valencia. Hope this means Turan is headed to China.

Whatever happened to the Blind rumours? Was really looking forward to it. The guy is very good talent, good on ball and is quite versatile, can play as LB, DM and CB. That's all the position we lack depth at. Backup for busi is also a issue for us.

Apparently Lucho counts on Samper next season and doesn't want to loan him out. Which makes him the back up DM. Umiti is the back up LB/CB

That sums it up then. Here we come Europe!

dybala's reps have been saying they rejected an 80m bid from barca..

which makes me question are we or were we close to selling neymar? just incase?
hope we make some official purchases soon.

Mourinho has asked Rojo to seek new club. For 10M he would be good and cheap sub for Alba.

Bart said we have 70m to spend, and we just spent 25 on Umtiti and some will go to Denis Suarez (10?). So 35m to spend left.

35 millions
Pardiola with bigger purse than Treble winning Lucho

Right but he didn't confirm if that was after the Umiti deal.

A few things from the presser

- Sounds like he's still negotiating to get Qatar Airwrays on our shirt, but is exploring other options. *bleep* this dude.

- 70M to spend plus whatever we make off sales.

- Lucho counts on Vidal and Turan (he didn't last year, why would he this year)

- Neymar is going to sign his new contract in the following days.

- Samper is going out on loan

- They count on Halilovic for the future, but first needs to go out and get experience/develop.

- Umiti deal will be official after Frances campaign ends, but the deal is on.

- Denis Suarez hasn't been bough back yet, but he will be.

windkick wrote:

- Samper is going out on loan

Wasn't he suppose to be backup for busi?

that was a rumor a few weeks back. Fart today confirmed he will be loaned.


Also, he didnt want to confirm nor deny that we are interested in Gabriel Jesus from Palmerieas, but was quick to say he was a great player. Sounds like we are in for him

So we need;
Back up DM
Random guy to rotate with MSN
Alba backup/ replacement
Iniesta backup (unless we plan to play busi Rakitic Roberto midfield majority of season, that would be yolo)
These are not luxuries like Madrid buying Pogba, they are absolute necessities.I think we might be short of some cash here.

Back up DM could be Mascherano if needed.
Random guy to rotate with MSN for now is Munir/Sandro/D.Suarez/Turan
Alba back up is Umiti
Iniesta back up is D.Suarez/Rafinha/Turan/Sergi


D.Suarez and Umiti cover allot. What we really need is a right back.

beat me to it windkick lol

the way i see it

---------------MaTS
??-----Pique--------Masch----Alba
------------Buscuit
------Rakitic-------Iniesta
-Messi------Suarez--------Neymar

is the go to team whenever we play a big team, we as fans are overreacting on how many players we need etc, we lost the champions league because lack of depth not so much of star power.. we don't need a pogba or dybala sitting in the bench.


we should sell Bravo while we can still get a decent fee for him, especially after a good copa america run he just had, MaTS needs more minutes just makes the most sense, he might be a downgrade but he is the future.. if MaTS goes another season without real play time he'll eventually request to leave.. and there are clubs that are interested in him and ARE trying to convince him to join them.. if MaTS leaves then it's just another unnecessary problem that'll be stress in 2017 or 2018

Right back: this position is a mystery to me, vidal was barely given a chance to prove himself, and i do not feel safe with seeing sergi roberto facing a proper winger in a big game.. he does good against fodder teams so he provides depth but can we depend on these two for big games? probably not so a new purchase in my opinion is necessary.

Forward : someone who can play all positions would be great but i think a striker is a bigger priority than winger as we have midfield players who can play the wing.

Fart said they are counting on both Ter Stegen and Bravo next season FYI. Odd I thought Bravo would be gone to give Ter Stegen more playing time. Also thought Turan would be out to make room for D. Suarez and potentially Gomez from Valencia. Could be Fart is saying one thing now, but will do something later anyway

Am not big fan of Hollywood signings believe me. Neither do I want a superstar in every position. I would rather have someone like Rakitic who does his job without major fuss. However if we look at our team we do need some decent backups desperately. Let me emphasize here that we lost CL because we got tired and also were on verge of losing the league in most disgraceful way because again we got tired. With risk of sounding little cynical or negative I would like to highlight some points;
1. We cannot expect Busquet to start every game and perform consistently. It is very demanding position and though we have Masche, I would really have him back in defence every single minute because he is closest thing to defender we have. Also Roberto as DM? No thanx. The guy maybe decent back up at RB but at DM is as clueless as the writers of porn movie.
2. Regarding iniesta replacement, after watching Euro and on the basis of last year performances post first Clasico, one things clear that though he's still got it I don't think he can deliver it week in week out. Against Atletico he struggled and we got eliminated. Him and Messi are our source of any creativity and if he struggles like he did in last phase of league, Messi drops back or plays in center which is not very good for us. Hence we need someone to back him up so that we can reserve iniesta for crucial matches like we did Xavi. Also Turan is nearly lost cause for me. I wouldn't expect him to do more than fill in for 10-20 mins.
3. Regarding Alba and Mathieu, less said better. I hope Umtiti proves to be upgrade at this department. Not super hyped though.
4. Right backs; don't know what's the deal between vidal and lucho. It's safe to say though that Lucho isn't a fan of him the way he handled him last season. Roberto has proved decent RB but against better oppositions he will get skinned no doubt about it. Dani has left huge void behind him that's for sure.
5. MSN rotation; it's safe to say they will be playing most of the minutes and as far as they play we don't have any issues. But what happens when someone is injured ala Messi last season? Or we play Seville on weekend and some good team on Tuesday for CL? We need someone like Pedro imo.
In short this team is perfectly capable of winning the league due to the sheer quality ief our offence but I wouldn't expect us to do good both in league and CL. We will get stretched that's for sure.

we have a pretty quality bench though minus the rightback position

i agree with you though more depth is never a bad thing but given our current situation i understand why we don't get a proper substitute for certain situations....

like the DM position, mascherano wanted out and we had to convince him to stay, buying someone to take more minutes from him wouldn't make sense atleast for this season... let alone that we still have to give the youths like samper some sort of a chance to fight for a spot.

centerbacks : Pique, Mascherano, Umiti, Verm, Mathieu
rightback : vidal, s. roberto.....?
leftback : alba, umiti, mathieu, sergi roberto

CDM : buscuit, mascherano, sergi roberto
CM : iniesta, rakitic, turan, rafinha, D. Suarez, sergi roberto

RW : Messi, Rafinha, Aleix Vidal
LW : Neymar, D. Suarez, Iniesta, Turan
ST : Suarez, Messi, Rafinha

rarely do we use the third string players unless rare occasions.. i mean this season about how many times did we used bartra in centerback or adriano in LB, sandro in ST, those were the third strings and were mostly used against bottom of the table teams.

i think we need a good striker substitute, a starting rightback, any other buy is gravy.

yea, i mean one could easily attribute the players getting tired to Lucho not rotating enough vs lack of depth. Our depth did suck, but Lucho didn't really even give them a shot to suck because he didn't use them. Munir/Sandro were on good goal scoring form when given a chance bar the first few months and yet he stopped using them all together. Stopped using Vidal all together, and Turan just sucked and hardly even played. And remember the International breaks had allot to do with our players getting tired, something that is out of anyone's hands. Stupid ass International break landed in an insanely difficult part of our schedule and it ruined us.